Name: Đỗ Thị Anh Tú

ID: 1605638
Class: K19C
Assignments for Session 6

The West at the Turn of the Century

“The Modern World: Self and Other in Global Context”

1. What are the prominent projects and movements in arts and literature emerging in the
twentieth century? What are the contexts for those projects and movements to develop?

Modern consciousness in the twentieth century took a remarkable turn.

Breathtaking advances in technology, transformations of modern states, the rapid spread of inter
national corporations, cultural exchanges occurring rapidly and inevitably as com munication and
transportation networks linked all sections of the world-all created an era in which the essential
reality is interconnectedness rather than isolation.

The 20th century saw a new era of visual artists who challenged the precedent art styles. Beauty and
aesthetics gave way to abstraction, expression and symbolism. This metamorphosis formed
numerous distinct and important art movements which presented a new type of aesthetic, some
which overlap with or influenced the others. Some of most influential modern and contemporary art
movements and developments of the century include Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Dada, Surrealism,
Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism, Conceptual Art, Photorealism, and Neo-Expressionism.

Literature of the 20th century refers to world literature produced during the 20th century (1901 to
2000).

In terms of the Euro-American tradition, the main periods are captured in the bipartite division,
Modernist literature and Postmodern literature, flowering from roughly 1900 to 1940 and 1960 to
1990 respectively, divided, as a rule of thumb, by World War II. The somewhat malleable term
"contemporary literature" is usually applied with a post-1960 cut off point.

Although these terms (modern, contemporary and postmodern) are most applicable to Western
literary history, the rise of the globalization has allowed European literary ideas to spread into non-
Western cultures fairly rapidly, so that Asian and African literatures can be included into these
divisions with only minor qualifications. Writers from non-Western cultures were on the forefront of
literary development.

Technological advances during the 20th century allowed cheaper production of books, resulting in a
significant rise in production of popular literature and trivial literature, comparable to the similar
developments in music. The division of "popular literature" and "high literature" in the 20th century
is by no means absolute, and various genres such as detectives or science fiction fluctuate between
the two.

Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

1. What is Marlow’s hobby when he was a child? What did he wish to do in the future with that
hobby? Eventually how does he make his dream come true and what job does he pick to pursue
that dream?

When Marlow was a child, he had a passion for maps and wished to explore the "blank places" on
the map. Marlow had had an adventurous spirit since his childhood.

Because of this, after a trip from India, he takes a job in a Belgian company that sends agents to
Congo Africa to ivory. Marlow is appointed to take back the most successful agent of the company
Mr. Kurtz to Europe for medical treatment. However, by the time Marlow had grown up enough to
try and realize his dream, the blank spaces had been filled in. They had lost their mystery and
innocence.

2. In what situation does Marlow get appointed to be a captain? What does he have to do before
officially assuming the position of captain? What is the main task of the ship he is leading?

Marlow managed to get his appointment as a riverboat for the Company through his aunt’s
influence and aid. Marlow’s aunt knew the wife of a man in the administration of the Company and
therefore was Marlow’s aunt was able to get Marlow’s appointment. Captain Fresleven plays an
important role in Marlow’s appointment because he accelerated the appointment with his death.
This is what triggered the chance for Marlow to be the captain of a riverboat.

Marlow signed his contracts at the Company's headquarters in Brussels. Passing through an office
with two women who are knitting, Marlow spoke with the Company's director for less than a
minute; after being dismissed, he was asked to sign a number of papers in which he promised not to
divulge any trade secrets. Marlow's primary mission was to visit and, if necessary, retrieve the
mysterious Kurtz, an extraordinarily successful agent who had lost contact and reportedly fallen ill.

Woolf’s A Room for One’s Own

1. What are the main issues of women Virginia Woolf wants to raise and find solution in the
excerpted parts of her A Room for One’s Own?

Virginia Woolf advances the thesis that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is
to write fiction" in A Room of One's Own.

For centuries women have been forced into a role which denied them equal opportunities. Virginia
Woolf expresses her frustration on why women were denied. Woolf compares the traditional
lifestyle tailored made for the opposite sex and the sacrifices that came with it. Women are limited
intellectually as to not interfere with their domesticated duties. Even having the same desires for
activities and education as men, a women’s place was not allowed in the man’s world.

Woolf closes the essay with an exhortation to her audience of women to take up the tradition that
has been so hardly bequeathed to them, and to increase the endowment for their own daughters.

Kafka’s Metamorphosis

1. What time of the morning does Gregor Samsa get up and find that he is transformed into a
vermin? What is the weather in that morning? What does he do after that? What does he think
about his job at that time?

Gregor Samsa awakes every morning at four o’clock has “not once been ill during his five-year
employment.

He wakes in his bed and discovers he has transformed into a giant bug. Wondering what has
happened, he looks around his small room, where everything appears normal.

The dreary weather start with the rain drops were falling audibly down on the metal window ledge
which made Gregor quite melancholy.

He tries to roll over and go back to sleep in order to forget about what has happened, but because of
the shape of his back, he can only rock from side to side.

After he examines his new insect body, Gregor's thoughts almost immediately turn to his job.
Gregor, a traveling salesman, dreads spending time on the road who he thought this is an exhausting
job and he hates his boss. However, he holds his tongue at work because of his obligation to support
his family. Gregor's work cause him even more anxiety than the fact that he has become an insect.

2. What do the people (his family and his office manager) around him respond to this event?
Seeing that Gregor is now a giant insect, the terrified office manager backs away, the mother passes
out, and the father cries and together these details foreshadow that Gregor’s isolation from other
people will only continue to grow.

3. What is Samsa’s present job? What is his occupation previous to his present job?

Gregor Samsa was a lieutenant in the army before he became a traveling salesman. Gregor dislikes
his job of being a traveling salesman due to the long hours, not being able to form any relationships,
poor eating, and having to stay in hotels some nights.

4. What is Samsa’s intention when the he sees the office manager wants to leave?

Gregor delivers a long speech asking the office manager to put in a good word for him at work, since
traveling salesmen often become the subjects of negative gossip, but the office manager continues
to back out of the apartment. Gregor unsuccessfully tries to catch him as he flees and discovers how
easily he can crawl on his new legs.

5. What is the first food Samsa sees since the time he gets transformed into a vermin?

Gregor wakes in the evening and sees that someone has put a bowl of milk and bread in the room.
Though milk had been his favorite drink, he finds he cannot stand the taste now.

6. In his reminiscence, what does Samsa want to help his sister with her hobby when he starts to
earn enough money to cover the expenses for his whole family?

Gregor had hoped of giving Grete a bright future and make sure she was successful in her endeavors.
He retained a strong bond only with his sister, and wanted to use the money he made to send her to
the Conservatory to study the violin.

7. What street do Samsa and his family live on?

The Metamorphosis takes place in an unnamed European city. The primary setting is an apartment
of the Samsa family. An entire story develops in Samsa’s house.

8. What happens on the day Samsa’s mother enters his room to visit him? What is his father’s
reaction to Samsa when he comes back and witnesses the story?

Gregor's mother eventually begs to see him. Gregor thinks that he wants to see his mother because
she can understand things better than his sister. His mother and sister come into the room, but find
moving the chest of drawers very difficult. Gregor's mother suggests that if they were to remove all
his furniture, it would look to him as though they had given up on his recovery. Gregor, hearing his
mother's voice, realizes that he does want to keep his furniture since, even though it constrains his
motion, it keeps him linked to his past. Gregor decides that he has to save his furniture.

The movement of the furniture and the women's walking around the room distracts Gregor. When
they are momentarily outside, he crawls out from under the sofa and decides that he has to protect
the picture of the woman in fur hanging on his wall. He climbs up on the wall and sticks to the
picture. Grete and her mother come in and, when they see Gregor, his mother faints. Grete runs out
to get some medicine to revive her and Gregor, wanting to help, follows. When she turns around
and sees Gregor behind her, Grete drops a bottle of the medicine and runs into his room, locking
him out. Gregor's father soon comes home to discover that Gregor has left his room and caused his
mother to faint. Gregor, trapped in the living room by the locked door to his own room, cannot
escape his father who chases him around the room and then begins throwing apples at him. One of
the apples sinks into Gregor's back, causing him such pain that he can't move. As he loses
consciousness, Gregor sees his mother running to his father and begging him to spare her son's life.

9. What does Samsa’s family do after his death?

After Gregor's death, each member of the Samsa family takes the day off from work. They take a
tram to the countryside and begin to plan for a brighter future. They seem relieved and glad, rather
than sad, that Gregor has died.